Friday Wrings #90: Food and/or Eating

 

 

Greetings, dear Wordsmiths!

Besides the final checking of the printer’s hard copy proofs for my forthcoming trilogy – which is both intensely time-consuming and wildly exciting – the other thing I’ve been up to lately is changing my relationship to food and eating. I’ve gone and turned vegan!

I’d already been almost vegetarian for decades. Recently a vegan friend said, ‘Have a look at this YouTube video,’ and after doing so I thought, ‘OK, that’s it, I’m going all the way.’ (For me, it’s a moral choice rather than a health regime, largely about how creatures are treated on the way to becoming our food. But I’m not going to preach to you about it; I believe in indvdual free choice. I know you all have perfectly good minds and hearts, to work things out according to your own lights.)

It’s been interesting settling into the new ways. The things I still needed to give up were eggs, cheese, fish, and honey. I’m still transitional really. I didn’t want to waste food I’d already bought; and sometimes when I’m eating out I don’t quite get it right. I have to be a bit more aware, now, of what goes into a dish. Also I’m having to learn about taking care of my nutrition properly in terms of things like protein and iron. Luckily there’s a lot of literature available.

Here's a recent vegan feast I created for myself: stir-fry veg with cashew nuts, rice, tahini, and sweet chilli sauce. It was very yum!

 

So there has been much concentration on food and eating this last little while – and I remembered discovering years ago, in a poetry workshop, what a great source of inspiration this topic can be. Eating is so basic and primal, food so vital! We all have a lot of emotion around the subject, perhaps without even realising that until we come to write about it.

Me, I love chocolate! As many people do. (Luckily there’s good vegan chocolate. I’ve even found a vegan cheese that tastes like cheddar.) I also adore spicy hot food, which many people don’t. Then, I’m so fortunate never to have experienced famine or starvation, or even any serious food allergies; not everyone is so lucky. I believe that malnutrition or outright starvation is a painful way to die.

Food can be an expression of love. I have an old friend staying with me at present, and we are vying to give each other food treats, whether taking each other out for a meal or cooking something here.

For little babies, nursing is not only sustenance but a time of being embraced, safely enfolded in the soft, warm flesh of the mother.

As I said – a rich topic!

So please, for your optional prompt this week, give us something about food and/or eating.

As always, post it to your blog, and link (below) to that post. One post per person, please, with a limit of 369 words, excluding title. Poetry or prose, old or new, and if you don’t wish to write to the topic, we’re happy to read whatever else you've written that you’re moved to share. Feel free to say a quick hello, or communicate anything else you like, in our comments below; and do please visit each other and enjoy the rich and varied feast laid out for our consumption!

Next week, our Magaly will invite us to find inspiration in the phrase “muscle memory”.